Some of you are clearly so skilled with the glue gun you ought to take it to the Wild West, and others have got um, heart, and we respect both those things here. While we may have mentioned one or two thousand times that the good costumes made us feel a little inadequate, we have to honor many of them because A) they straight-up rock, and B) we hope that should we become estranged from our mothers or decide the jersey won’t cut it for another year, you winners will make costumes for our children we can pass off as our own creations. (Especially since my kid has decided she wants to be a giant tongue next year. Should that be paper mache or felt? Help a girl out!)

While every entry we got was good or inspired or sincere or at least featured an adorable kid, we wish you could all get prizes. But this isn’t your kid’s T-ball game, so we had to choose a few winners. Here’s the prize entries. Feel free to complain bitterly about biased judging or fixed results in the comments.

Most Illustrative of the Circle of Life (aka Why “March of the Penguins” Was a Depressing Movie): The angler fish (submitted by Geoffrey Nelson).

Courtesy Geoffrey Nelson

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Sly Stone Honor for Getting the Party Started Right:

DJ Lance Rock from “Yo Gabba Gabba” (submitted by Ian Milham).

Courtesy Ian Milham

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Best Use of Styrofoam Peanuts: California roll (submitted by Sherry Mask).

Courtesy Sherry Mask

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Most Likely to Be Endorsed by both a Pro Athlete and Kurt Cobain: Chuck Taylor All-Star sneaker (submitted by Claudia Arenas).

Courtesy Claudia Arenas

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Best Obscenely Cute Costume That Makes Us Do That ‘Awwww’ Noise: The happy sunflower (submitted by Mark Jobson).

The Michael Bay Award for Gratuitous Costume Special Effects (aka Now We Feel Bad Because We Can’t Even Produce ONE Good Costume, Let Alone One That Transforms into Another Great Costume): Optimus Prime (submitted by Claire Pitts).

Courtesy Claire Pitts

Courtesy Claire Pitts

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Judges’ Favorite (combining MacGyver-like skills in the face of kid fickleness … plus it has that great “naked guy in a barrel” feel): Cheerios, aka Bye Bye Kitty (submitted by Erin Merritt).

Courtesy Erin Merritt

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Winners should expect to receive an e-mail from Peter, offering a choice of DVD box sets for awards. Sorry, but only one person is going to get Season One of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries.